pixy abbess: It's Money-Time! How to Focus on Profit in the Era of Distractions ...

Posted by Carla Young on October 29, 2012 ? Leave a Comment?

Consider how you spend your day, your week, your month. Think about how much of your time is spent on ACTUAL revenue generating activities compared to all the time spent chasing potential opportunities (even better, use a time tracker to document exactly how you spend your time).

Chances are you spend less time than you think.

So where does all the time go? A good guess is a big chunk of it is frittered away with administrative tasks, all the necessary to-do?s that have to get done to keep your business clogs turning. Another huge time-drain is all the activities that lead up to the profit: generating leads, prospecting, working on strategic relationships (and yes, social media).

Now imagine what would happen if you could cut through all the other stuff and focus solely on moneymaking tasks. How much would your business grow if only you had more time to dedicate to pursuing profit? What could you do with a more profitable enterprise?

The purpose of Momentum Monday is to help you focus on momentum building activities. In essence, to energize your week starting every Monday and get you focused on core activities and away from deadly distractions. Nothing is more important to the success of your business than profit.

How to Focus on Profit in the Era of Distractions

The best way to avoid distractions is to know exactly what you need to focus on. Start by establishing a hierarchy of activities to guide how you spend your time, placing revenue-generating activities at the top.

Money Time ? Spend the majority of your time on direct moneymaking activities. What this looks like ultimately depends on your business. For example, if you are a coach or consultant, this is your billable time spent working with clients. If you have a product business, this is the time spent selling.

Handling Billing ? Consider this a close second to money time. This is the time you spend making sure that all the necessary paperwork is in order to get paid. Billing should be your first priority when you aren?t directly working on money time.

Closing Sales ? Getting new customers or clients to sign on the dotted line is your next priority. It?s important not to confuse closing with generating new leads, which comes further down the list. Focus first on the prospects who are almost through your sales funnel and ready to make a decision.

New Proposals ? A step further down the sales funnel, generating new proposals is a key profit activity. Don?t fall the ?Too busy? trap and neglect your proposals. Make the time to get those interested leads pricing information!

Lead Generation ? Bringing new leads into your sales funnel is a key activity; however, beware: it is a very broad category and not every activity counts as true lead generation. Focus first on activities that bring you guaranteed leads, like attending your networking breakfast or reaching out to past clients.

Pursuing Potential ? Creating or pursuing potential opportunities is the last category because it?s the farthest from actual money time. While still important, note that it often turns into a distraction when it comes before other priorities.

About Carla Young
Carla Young, MOMeoMagazine.com Publisher If there?s living proof that women can have it all ? and then some ? it?s Carla Young. Building her multiple businesses on a virtual work-at-home model, Carla is an inspiration to other mothers who want to start a lifestyle business. During her early days as a mom entrepreneur, Carla made every single mistake in the book (and a few new ones for good measure). Realizing that ?doing it all? was unhealthy and unsustainable, Carla started by getting organized to the extreme, developing support systems for both her work and family. After other mothers started asking how they too could enjoy her lifestyle, Carla launched MOMeoMagazine.com to support moms at work, at home and at play (because every mommy deserves a little me-time)!